Top BofA Executive Under Fire for Libor Testimony

Alex Wilmot-Sitwell, former co-chief executive of the investment bank at UBS, leaves Portcullis House after giving evidence at the UK Parliamentary banking inquiry on Libor interest rates in London, Britain, 10 January 2013.

European Pressphoto Agency

The latest development in the years-long Libor saga arrives today with news that a top Bank of America executive faces criticism for supposedly misleading a U.K. Parliamentary committee about his Libor testimony earlier this year.

Back in January, Mr. Wilmot-Sitwell appeared before a Parliamentary committee investigating the Libor scandal. He was asked about Mr. Hayes. Mr. Wilmot-Sitwell responded that he didn’t recall Mr. Hayes and that he might have left UBS before Mr. Wilmot-Sitwell took on his current role. You can see the video of his testimony here, starting around the 11:39:30 mark.

An important caveat: the transcript calls itself an “uncorrected transcript of oral evidence” but it doesn’t fully match the video.

Compare, for example, what the transcript says here:

Alex Wilmot-Sitwell: I do not recall being asked for a reference. I think that there would have inevitably been some form of HR-driven reference that would have gone to the other bank, because that was part and parcel of the normal course. To be candid, I do not recall him–I never met him–leaving.

…. to what Mr. Wilmot-Sitwell actually said:

“I don’t recall being asked for a reference. And I think there would have been inevitably some form of HR-driven reference which would have gone to the other bank because that was part and parcel of the normal course. But I don’t recall him. I never met him. I don’t recall him leaving, to be candid.”

In any case, Mr. Wilmot-Sitwell’s parliamentary remarks are under new scrutiny now because of a July 2009 email chain in which various UBS executives discussed efforts to prevent Mr. Hayes from jumping to a rival bank.

Mark Garnier, the Member of Parliament who elicited Mr. Wilmot-Sitwell’s statement in January, tells us that he finds it “pretty fanciful” that the former UBS executive was on the email chain but also claims he doesn’t recall Mr. Hayes.